7,318 research outputs found
Establishing elements of a synthetic biology platform for Vaccinia virus production: BioBrickTM design, serum-free virus production and microcarrier-based cultivation of CV-1 cells
Vaccinia virus (VACV) is an established vector for vaccination and is beginning to prove effective as an oncolytic agent. Industrial production of VACV stands to benefit in future from advances made by synthetic biology in genome engineering and standardisation. The CV-1 cell line can be used for VACV propagation and has been used extensively with the CRISPR/Cas9 system for making precise edits of the VACV genome. Here we take first steps toward establishing a scalable synthetic biology platform for VACV production with CV-1 cells featuring standardised biological tools and serum free cell cultivation. We propose a new BioBrick™ plasmid backbone format for inserting transgenes into VACV. We then test the performance of CV-1 cells in propagation of a conventional recombinant Lister strain VACV, VACVL-15 RFP, in a serum-free process. CV-1 cells grown in 5% foetal bovine serum (FBS) Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) were adapted to growth in OptiPRO and VP-SFM brands of serum-free media. Specific growth rates of 0.047 h−1 and 0.044 h−1 were observed for cells adapted to OptiPRO and VP-SFM respectively, compared to 0.035 h−1 in 5% FBS DMEM. Cells adapted to OptiPRO and to 5% FBS DMEM achieved recovery ratios of over 96%, an indication of their robustness to cryopreservation. Cells adapted to VP-SFM showed a recovery ratio of 82%. Virus productivity in static culture, measured as plaque forming units (PFU) per propagator cell, was 75 PFU/cell for cells in 5% FBS DMEM. VP-SFM and OptiPRO adaptation increased VACV production to 150 PFU/cell and 350 PFU/cell respectively. Boosted PFU/cell from OptiPRO-adapted cells persisted when 5% FBS DMEM or OptiPRO medium was observed during the infection step and when titre was measured using cells adapted to 5% FBS DMEM or OptiPRO medium. Finally, OptiPRO-adapted CV-1 cells were successfully cultivated using Cytodex-1 microcarriers to inform future scale up studies
Universal scaling relation in high-temperature superconductors
Scaling laws express a systematic and universal simplicity among complex
systems in nature. For example, such laws are of enormous significance in
biology. Scaling relations are also important in the physical sciences. The
seminal 1986 discovery of high transition-temperature (high-T_c)
superconductivity in cuprate materials has sparked an intensive investigation
of these and related complex oxides, yet the mechanism for superconductivity is
still not agreed upon. In addition, no universal scaling law involving such
fundamental properties as T_c and the superfluid density \rho_s, a quantity
indicative of the number of charge carriers in the superconducting state, has
been discovered. Here we demonstrate that the scaling relation \rho_s \propto
\sigma_{dc} T_c, where the conductivity \sigma_{dc} characterizes the
unidirectional, constant flow of electric charge carriers just above T_c,
universally holds for a wide variety of materials and doping levels. This
surprising unifying observation is likely to have important consequences for
theories of high-T_c superconductivity.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 table
Relativistic Mean-Field Theory Equation of State of Neutron Star Matter and a Maxwellian Phase Transition to Strange Quark Matter
The equation of state of neutron star matter is examined in terms of the
relativistic mean-field theory, including a scalar-isovector -meson
effective field. The constants of the theory are determined numerically so that
the empirically known characteristics of symmetric nuclear matter are
reproduced at the saturation density. The thermodynamic characteristics of both
asymmetric nucleonic matter and -equilibrium hadron-electron
-plasmas are studied. Assuming that the transition to strange quark matter
is an ordinary first-order phase transition described by Maxwell's rule, a
detailed study is made of the variations in the parameters of the phase
transition owing to the presence of a -meson field. The quark phase is
described using an improved version of the bag model, in which interactions
between quarks are accounted for in a one-gluon exchange approximation. The
characteristics of the phase transition are determined for various values of
the bag parameter within the range and it is shown
that including a -meson field leads to a reduction in the phase
transition pressure and in the concentrations and at
the phase transition point.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Enabling Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications through Unlicensed Spectrum
© 2018 IEEE. In this article, we aim to address the question of how to exploit the unlicensed spectrum to achieve URLLC. Potential URLLC PHY mechanisms are reviewed and then compared via simulations to demonstrate their potential benefits to URLLC. Although a number of important PHY techniques help with URLLC, the PHY layer exhibits an intrinsic trade-off between latency and reliability, posed by limited and unstable wireless channels. We then explore MAC mechanisms and discuss multi-channel strategies for achieving low-latency LTE unlicensed band access. We demonstrate, via simulations, that the periods without access to the unlicensed band can be substantially reduced by maintaining channel access processes on multiple unlicensed channels, choosing the channels intelligently, and implementing RTS/CTS
Intermatrix synthesis: easy technique permitting preparation of polymer-stabilized nanoparticles with desired composition and structure
The synthesis of polymer-stabilized nanoparticles (PSNPs) can be successfully carried out using intermatrix synthesis (IMS) technique, which consists in sequential loading of the functional groups of a polymer with the desired metal ions followed by nanoparticles (NPs) formation stage. After each metal-loading-NPs-formation cycle, the functional groups of the polymer appear to be regenerated. This allows for repeating the cycles to increase the NPs content or to obtain NPs with different structures and compositions (e.g. core-shell or core-sandwich). This article reports the results on the further development of the IMS technique. The formation of NPs has been shown to proceed by not only the metal reduction reaction (e.g. Cu0-NPs) but also by the precipitation reaction resulting in the IMS of PSNPs of metal salts (e.g. CuS-NPs)
Enabling Technologies for Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications: From PHY and MAC Layer Perspectives
© 1998-2012 IEEE. Future 5th generation networks are expected to enable three key services-enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communications and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). As per the 3rd generation partnership project URLLC requirements, it is expected that the reliability of one transmission of a 32 byte packet will be at least 99.999% and the latency will be at most 1 ms. This unprecedented level of reliability and latency will yield various new applications, such as smart grids, industrial automation and intelligent transport systems. In this survey we present potential future URLLC applications, and summarize the corresponding reliability and latency requirements. We provide a comprehensive discussion on physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layer techniques that enable URLLC, addressing both licensed and unlicensed bands. This paper evaluates the relevant PHY and MAC techniques for their ability to improve the reliability and reduce the latency. We identify that enabling long-term evolution to coexist in the unlicensed spectrum is also a potential enabler of URLLC in the unlicensed band, and provide numerical evaluations. Lastly, this paper discusses the potential future research directions and challenges in achieving the URLLC requirements
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Phase‐only tuning of extreme huygens metasurfaces enabled by optical anisotropy
Pure phase modulation of light is vital for a number of optical devices such as spatial light modulators and beam steering in light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technologies. Tunable metasurfaces have recently provided a feasible alternative to existing technologies, allowing for ultra-high miniaturisation while enabling high transmission efficiency and tunability under small external stimuli. However, despite the recent advances in the field, no pure phase tuning has been demonstrated in transmissive devices, for example, any implementation of continuous phase tuning is accompanied by sizable amplitude modulation or low efficiency. Here, it is shown that the optical anisotropy of the surrounding material can enable phase-only tuning of optical metasurfaces in the full 2π range with unitary efficiency over a sizable bandwidth. A practical implementation of this concept based on a liquid-crystal infiltrated metasurface operating in the regime of extreme Huygens condition is further proposed. In this way, the full 2π phase-only tunability in transmission can be enabled by controlling bias voltage and temperature variation of the surrounding liquid crystal
Holographic Superconductors from Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton Gravity
We construct holographic superconductors from Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton
gravity in 3+1 dimensions with two adjustable couplings and the charge
carried by the scalar field. For the values of and we
consider, there is always a critical temperature at which a second order phase
transition occurs between a hairy black hole and the AdS RN black hole in the
canonical ensemble, which can be identified with the superconducting phase
transition of the dual field theory. We calculate the electric conductivity of
the dual superconductor and find that for the values of and where
is small the dual superconductor has similar properties to the
minimal model, while for the values of and where is
large enough, the electric conductivity of the dual superconductor exhibits
novel properties at low frequencies where it shows a "Drude Peak" in the real
part of the conductivity.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures; v2, typos corrected; v3, refs added, to appear
in JHE
Spectra of supernovae in the nebular phase
When supernovae enter the nebular phase after a few months, they reveal
spectral fingerprints of their deep interiors, glowing by radioactivity
produced in the explosion. We are given a unique opportunity to see what an
exploded star looks like inside. The line profiles and luminosities encode
information about physical conditions, explosive and hydrostatic
nucleosynthesis, and ejecta morphology, which link to the progenitor properties
and the explosion mechanism. Here, the fundamental properties of spectral
formation of supernovae in the nebular phase are reviewed. The formalism
between ejecta morphology and line profile shapes is derived, including effects
of scattering and absorption. Line luminosity expressions are derived in
various physical limits, with examples of applications from the literature. The
physical processes at work in the supernova ejecta, including gamma-ray
deposition, non-thermal electron degradation, ionization and excitation, and
radiative transfer are described and linked to the computation and application
of advanced spectral models. Some of the results derived so far from
nebular-phase supernova analysis are discussed.Comment: Book chapter for 'Handbook of Supernovae,' edited by Alsabti and
Murdin, Springer. 51 pages, 14 figure
Simple system for optical short-pulse generation in both active mode-locking and self-seeding schemes
Author name used in this publication: H. L. HoAuthor name used in this publication: H. L. Liu2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
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